Disturbed Release New Album, Evolution

Let’s start with what this album does right, because there isn’t much to say in that regard. The main attraction is frontman David Draiman’s voice, which seems to have only improved with time. This is most noticeable on the final track, ‘Already Gone,’ a mostly slow, acoustic number with no offensively bad melodies or lyrics.

The best song, obviously, is their live cover of ‘the Sound of Silence,’ which is also the only reason anyone will buy this record in the first place. It’s only on the deluxe edition, though, so you’ll have to dish out an extra £10 if you want your album to contain a good song.

Moving on to the bad, let’s put the music aside for a moment to discuss lyrics. Specifically, this one:

“It’s time to make them realise that we will no longer be their whore.”

Taken with the album title, you might assume that this line is a statement about the music industry, and how Disturbed will no longer let their profits take precedent over their musical integrity. But no. With this line, the band is actually asking their teenage fanbase to protest governmental war-mongering. The rest of the lyrics to ‘No More’ seem to imply that Disturbed does not realise that America is already at war.

And that’s not even one of the worst offenders. Rarely when listening to music do I cringe, so I suppose this album is standing out from the crowd in that regard. So, let’s talk music. It’s awful. It’s not that I think this is the worst hard rock I’ve ever heard, but when I listen to songs like ‘Watch You Burn’ it becomes hard to ignore the possibility that it might be.

What we’re dealing with is music that was clearly written for a deadline. Opening track ‘Are You Ready,’ ironically enough, seems unfinished. In its present state, it’s just the store-brand version of ‘Down With the Sickness.’ ‘Saviour of Nothing’ is another stand-out, but for the opposite reasons. Far from being boring, rehashed filler, it’s a cacophony of bad ideas. The chorus is terrible, the riffs are uninspired, the solo is a mess and nothing works together at all.

I could go on, but every song is terrible for its own reasons, and the big picture that I’m trying to get across to you here is that you don’t need to hear any of these songs anyway because the record fucking sucks.